8 ms·

BWXT and Crowley Developing Nuclear Power Generation Ships

66 points by kaiwen1 3y ago

turnsout 3y ago
Wonderful typo in the image caption: > Crowley's concept is to place nuclear reactors on ships to provide power as a disaster and in remote locations Power as a Disaster (PaaD) is such a hardcore business model
- rbanffy 3y ago
  And a perfect fit for nuclear.
- moffkalast 3y ago
  When disasters are part of your business model, doesn't that create some supervillain-tier incentives?
  - turnsout 3y ago
    Supervillains are some of our best enterprise customers!
gs17 3y ago
I've been playing too much Starfield, I was thinking nuclear-powered generation ships, as in spaceships which travel interstellar distances with multiple generations of people born onboard.
- MengerSponge 3y ago
  I parsed it the same way. "Generating" would probably be more clear than "Generation" To be clear: I support both nuclear power generating ships and most types of generation ships.
acidburnNSA 3y ago
Floating nuclear power plants are very intriguing. You get extremely reliable cooling, decouple from high G earthquake accelerations, and, most importantly, can build in a fully serialized shipyard based manufacturing facility, tackling the major cost issues of nuclear in general. The first one the US ran was the MH-1A Sturgis, built out of a converted liberty ship. It powered part of the Panama Canal for a while. [1] The big story, which is nearly forgotten, is that Westinghouse and Newport News jointly developed large floating nuclear plants as Offshore Power Systems. They installed the world's largest gantry crane on Blount Island in Jacksonville, FL at their nuclear reactor mass production gigafactory and got an actual manufacturing license from the NRC to build the first 8 units. [2] I consider this one of the most promising ways to get nuclear power's ducks in a row, enabling it to mass produce reactors at a pace relevant more relevant for a rapid global energy transition. And starting out with a relief ship is a very appropriate way to kick this off again. NPR's Science Friday covered that story back in 2020 [3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MH-1A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MH-1A [2] https://whatisnuclear.com/offshore-nuclear-plants.html https://whatisnuclear.com/offshore-nuclear-plants.html [3] https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/floating-nuclear-power-plants/ https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/floating-nuclear-powe...
- newsclues 3y ago
  As a ship designed for disaster recovery they are very interesting, as they can provide power, clean water, food, medical care and basic services for a city, and they can travel rapidly, but only access costal cities.
  - acidburnNSA 3y ago
    Exactly. This happens with nuclear-powered military vessels sometimes, like in Haiti 2010 where the USS Carl Vinson rolled up and desalinated 150,000 gallons of seawater per day.[1] [1] https://www.dvidshub.net/image/252518/soldiers-bring-fresh-clean-water-haiti https://www.dvidshub.net/image/252518/soldiers-bring-fresh-c... > One of the great benefits of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is that we were able to proceed at 30 knots for two full days to arrive on station,” said Carl Vinson Commanding Officer, Capt. Bruce H. Lindsey. “Our flexibility, speed and sustainability enable us to immediately begin the relief efforts.” — MC1 Jason Thompson, militarynews.com, Jan 21, 2010 [2] [2] https://www.militarynews.com/norfolk-navy-flagship/oceana/news/carl-vinson-begins-humanitarian-operations-in-haiti/article_2a3e4389-eaab-5570-b6c2-31ede28491c9.html https://www.militarynews.com/norfolk-navy-flagship/oceana/ne...
Rustwerks 3y ago
What's the feasability of making nuclear powered cargo ship 'trains'? Is it possible to string them together with cables for power?
- acidburnNSA 3y ago
  Not sure about trains, but large ocean-faring nuclear-powered tugboats have been considered to move container ship sized barges most of the way and then let battery or fossil powered tugs bring em the final mile into port. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1559-3584.1963.tb04392.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1559-3584.1963...
  - pydry 3y ago
    Theres exactly one nuclear powered cargo ship in existence the Sevmorput. There used to be 4. The reason there arent more is because like all things nuclear it just costs too much.
    - callalex 3y ago
      Well, if you don’t count the massive negative cost everyone has to bear when burning bunker fuel.
  - throwuwu 3y ago
    Yo dawg we heard you like containers so we turned your container ship into a container!
- QuarterReptile 3y ago
  The cost of labor is too low, and the prevalence of pirates too high, to justify this idea. You're also talking about serious intermodal requirements to handle these things when they get to the interface between open ocean and restricted waters, because safe navigation is a near impossibility with the tug configuration you're proposing, especially once navigational constraints (e.g. land or shoal water) come into the picture. A large merchant vessel takes several miles to stop on its own, before you consider any towing configuration. If you've never operated around them, you probably don't have the instinct that you can be in serious danger of a collision while still several miles away from another vessel, but what you're proposing is scary. Even without the navigational problems, you're necessitating armed guards by having these ships operate internationally, because these ships would be huge pirate targets on a much more severe level than the scrap metal and parts theft that is present throughout the world. That gets... tricky, legally (see https://www.swedishclub.com/upload/Loss_Prev_Docs/Piracy/PIRACY_and_USE_OF_ARMED_GUARDS_-_General_overview.pdf https://www.swedishclub.com/upload/Loss_Prev_Docs/Piracy/PIR...) Also, cargo ships are already enormous. Trains pale in comparison. We don't need these headaches. Oceangoing shipping is miraculously cheap already. Edit: I'll also point out that, regarding the sibling comment's link, oceangoing shipping was a much smaller club in 1963, so the navigational challenges would not have seemed so daunting. Containerized shipping didn't even exist until the mid-50s, and AIS and radar let us safely pack way more vessels into small spaces than they could have suspected.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
fghorow 3y ago
Am I the only one to think of the Boxing Day tsunami -- ~200,000 dead -- or Fukushima, for that matter? There might only be minutes of warning to get one of these away from a shore connection...
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  These would probably be put behind a breakwater
- theptip 3y ago
  Tsunamis are a shallow water phenomenon. If you are in deep water it’s not going to affect you. So a floating reactor would have been much preferable in Fukushima. Also, a floating reactor (at least, traditional water-cooled design) can’t get into a runaway meltdown; worst case the core drops into the ocean with infinite cooling potential. Again this probably reduces the potential for radioactive discharge.
  - AtlasBarfed 3y ago
    If some maritime modern pro-nuclear regulatory framework can get adopted for decarbonization of transport, then it would be good for nuclear. Yeah, not going to back any design that isn't fundamentally meltdown-proof. Probably one of the reasons why molten salt is referenced. Also because it seems more scalable, the liquid nature of the fuel means you could de-fuel it at a port more easily. But I could see pebble bed type stuff being worthwhile too. It honestly makes logistics and waste transport a lot more interesting. A power plant comes with a ship to transport it as a minor portion of the overall cost. It forces the plant design to be fundamentally portable and modular even if it gets placed terrestrially. Portability should make nuclear viable for lots of industry-specific use cases that nuclear But LCOE on current nuclear is 6x more than wind and solar. As stated, it would need some regulatory freedom / clean slate, a sweet spot engineering design, and we could probably get to 2-3x (current price) of wind/solar and get to a palatable cost for decarbonization.
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  Tsunamis shouldn't be an issue for ships, but if the floating power plant is in a busy port you do have a risk of a Halifax, Texas City or Beirut scenario. Lots of fertilizer and sometimes explosives move through ports and a powerful blast could severely damage or even sink the power plant. It doesn't happen terribly often, but it does happen sometimes.

66 points by kaiwen1 3y ago

Wonderful typo in the image caption: > Crowley's concept is to place nuclear reactors on ships to provide power as a disaster and in remote locations Power as a Disaster (PaaD) is such a hardcore business model

rbanffy 3y ago
And a perfect fit for nuclear.
moffkalast 3y ago
When disasters are part of your business model, doesn't that create some supervillain-tier incentives?
- turnsout 3y ago
  Supervillains are some of our best enterprise customers!

gs17 3y ago

I've been playing too much Starfield, I was thinking nuclear-powered generation ships, as in spaceships which travel interstellar distances with multiple generations of people born onboard.

MengerSponge 3y ago
I parsed it the same way. "Generating" would probably be more clear than "Generation" To be clear: I support both nuclear power generating ships and most types of generation ships.

acidburnNSA 3y ago

Floating nuclear power plants are very intriguing. You get extremely reliable cooling, decouple from high G earthquake accelerations, and, most importantly, can build in a fully serialized shipyard based manufacturing facility, tackling the major cost issues of nuclear in general. The first one the US ran was the MH-1A Sturgis, built out of a converted liberty ship. It powered part of the Panama Canal for a while. [1] The big story, which is nearly forgotten, is that Westinghouse and Newport News jointly developed large floating nuclear plants as Offshore Power Systems. They installed the world's largest gantry crane on Blount Island in Jacksonville, FL at their nuclear reactor mass production gigafactory and got an actual manufacturing license from the NRC to build the first 8 units. [2] I consider this one of the most promising ways to get nuclear power's ducks in a row, enabling it to mass produce reactors at a pace relevant more relevant for a rapid global energy transition. And starting out with a relief ship is a very appropriate way to kick this off again. NPR's Science Friday covered that story back in 2020 [3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MH-1A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MH-1A [2] https://whatisnuclear.com/offshore-nuclear-plants.html https://whatisnuclear.com/offshore-nuclear-plants.html [3] https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/floating-nuclear-power-plants/ https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/floating-nuclear-powe...

newsclues 3y ago
As a ship designed for disaster recovery they are very interesting, as they can provide power, clean water, food, medical care and basic services for a city, and they can travel rapidly, but only access costal cities.
- acidburnNSA 3y ago
  Exactly. This happens with nuclear-powered military vessels sometimes, like in Haiti 2010 where the USS Carl Vinson rolled up and desalinated 150,000 gallons of seawater per day.[1] [1] https://www.dvidshub.net/image/252518/soldiers-bring-fresh-clean-water-haiti https://www.dvidshub.net/image/252518/soldiers-bring-fresh-c... > One of the great benefits of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is that we were able to proceed at 30 knots for two full days to arrive on station,” said Carl Vinson Commanding Officer, Capt. Bruce H. Lindsey. “Our flexibility, speed and sustainability enable us to immediately begin the relief efforts.” — MC1 Jason Thompson, militarynews.com, Jan 21, 2010 [2] [2] https://www.militarynews.com/norfolk-navy-flagship/oceana/news/carl-vinson-begins-humanitarian-operations-in-haiti/article_2a3e4389-eaab-5570-b6c2-31ede28491c9.html https://www.militarynews.com/norfolk-navy-flagship/oceana/ne...

Rustwerks 3y ago

What's the feasability of making nuclear powered cargo ship 'trains'? Is it possible to string them together with cables for power?

acidburnNSA 3y ago
Not sure about trains, but large ocean-faring nuclear-powered tugboats have been considered to move container ship sized barges most of the way and then let battery or fossil powered tugs bring em the final mile into port. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1559-3584.1963.tb04392.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1559-3584.1963...
- pydry 3y ago
  Theres exactly one nuclear powered cargo ship in existence the Sevmorput. There used to be 4. The reason there arent more is because like all things nuclear it just costs too much.
  - callalex 3y ago
    Well, if you don’t count the massive negative cost everyone has to bear when burning bunker fuel.
- throwuwu 3y ago
  Yo dawg we heard you like containers so we turned your container ship into a container!
QuarterReptile 3y ago
The cost of labor is too low, and the prevalence of pirates too high, to justify this idea. You're also talking about serious intermodal requirements to handle these things when they get to the interface between open ocean and restricted waters, because safe navigation is a near impossibility with the tug configuration you're proposing, especially once navigational constraints (e.g. land or shoal water) come into the picture. A large merchant vessel takes several miles to stop on its own, before you consider any towing configuration. If you've never operated around them, you probably don't have the instinct that you can be in serious danger of a collision while still several miles away from another vessel, but what you're proposing is scary. Even without the navigational problems, you're necessitating armed guards by having these ships operate internationally, because these ships would be huge pirate targets on a much more severe level than the scrap metal and parts theft that is present throughout the world. That gets... tricky, legally (see https://www.swedishclub.com/upload/Loss_Prev_Docs/Piracy/PIRACY_and_USE_OF_ARMED_GUARDS_-_General_overview.pdf https://www.swedishclub.com/upload/Loss_Prev_Docs/Piracy/PIR...) Also, cargo ships are already enormous. Trains pale in comparison. We don't need these headaches. Oceangoing shipping is miraculously cheap already. Edit: I'll also point out that, regarding the sibling comment's link, oceangoing shipping was a much smaller club in 1963, so the navigational challenges would not have seemed so daunting. Containerized shipping didn't even exist until the mid-50s, and AIS and radar let us safely pack way more vessels into small spaces than they could have suspected.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

fghorow 3y ago

Am I the only one to think of the Boxing Day tsunami -- ~200,000 dead -- or Fukushima, for that matter? There might only be minutes of warning to get one of these away from a shore connection...

kjkjadksj 3y ago
These would probably be put behind a breakwater
theptip 3y ago
Tsunamis are a shallow water phenomenon. If you are in deep water it’s not going to affect you. So a floating reactor would have been much preferable in Fukushima. Also, a floating reactor (at least, traditional water-cooled design) can’t get into a runaway meltdown; worst case the core drops into the ocean with infinite cooling potential. Again this probably reduces the potential for radioactive discharge.
- AtlasBarfed 3y ago
  If some maritime modern pro-nuclear regulatory framework can get adopted for decarbonization of transport, then it would be good for nuclear. Yeah, not going to back any design that isn't fundamentally meltdown-proof. Probably one of the reasons why molten salt is referenced. Also because it seems more scalable, the liquid nature of the fuel means you could de-fuel it at a port more easily. But I could see pebble bed type stuff being worthwhile too. It honestly makes logistics and waste transport a lot more interesting. A power plant comes with a ship to transport it as a minor portion of the overall cost. It forces the plant design to be fundamentally portable and modular even if it gets placed terrestrially. Portability should make nuclear viable for lots of industry-specific use cases that nuclear But LCOE on current nuclear is 6x more than wind and solar. As stated, it would need some regulatory freedom / clean slate, a sweet spot engineering design, and we could probably get to 2-3x (current price) of wind/solar and get to a palatable cost for decarbonization.
mcpackieh 3y ago
Tsunamis shouldn't be an issue for ships, but if the floating power plant is in a busy port you do have a risk of a Halifax, Texas City or Beirut scenario. Lots of fertilizer and sometimes explosives move through ports and a powerful blast could severely damage or even sink the power plant. It doesn't happen terribly often, but it does happen sometimes.